Bethnahrin National Council Executive Board member Isho Gawriye: recognition of the Sayfo is the resurrection of our Syriac people

GOZARTO REGION (JAZIRA), Syria – On the occasion of Sayfo Genocide Remembrance Day, our newsdesk interviewed Executive Board member of the Bethnahrin National Council Isho Gawriye on the impact today of the genocide perpetrated 106 years ago against the Syriac (Chaldean-Aramean-Assyrian) people.

Below a summarized Q&A of the interview by Suroyo TV moderator Jacob Mirza.

Jacob Mirza: How are Syriacs today affected by the Sayfo Genocide 106 years ago?

Isho Gawriye: The Sayfo genocide has long held back the Syriac people in developing into a contemporary modern people with full rights like other peoples and states in the world. And the reason is known: the many repressions, massacres, and genocides against our people, left deep scars in our collective psychology as a people. The sense of national affinity, of community life, and of belonging to our ancient homelands was greatly affected. After so much adversity, our Syriac people fell into a state of submission, one of obedience that was also influenced by our Christian faith. This collective state of mind of submission was a wrong interpretation of our faith.

The effects of Sayfo were many but a first effect was the weakening of our sense of affinity and belonging to our Mesopotamian homeland. It caused a mentality of “today we are here, tomorrow we may be somewhere else”. A second effect concerns our Syriac language. After the Sayfo Genocide of 1915 we were poorly able to protect our national language in speech and writing. And a third effect relates to our ancient civilizations and culture which we were not allowed to cherish, consolidate, and self-develop.

All these reasons affected our ability as a people to preserve our own way of national life, standards, family values, upbringing, and mentality. Fear entered our collective state of mind and affected our free will as a people. This fear even led us to the doubt whether we Syriacs are rightful residents of our homelands.

Jacob Mirza: Can you elaborate on this fear? We know that it was only after we emigrated from our homelands to the diaspora that we as a people dared to speak out openly about the Sayfo Genocide of 1915.

Isho Gawriye: True. This is related to how the countries in our region came into existence and with the societal and democratic progress of the other peoples in the (Western) world. We and the peoples around us stayed behind in this development. After all the massacres of our thousands of years old people, our broken people was at the mercy of those who rule by brute force and by instilling fear in their citizens.

In the diaspora it is the other way around. Power lies with the citizens, the rule of law, and with democratic institutions and processes. The state serves its citizens. In the diaspora, we were able to speak openly about our feelings and our Sayfo trauma.

In the repressive status-quo systems in which we live in our homelands, our feelings about Sayfo remained forcefully suppressed. The systems based on fear and denial, did not allow us to speak, demand, heal, and stand up. As individuals and as a people we surrendered ourselves to be able to survive and live. A good Syriac was a Syriac who capitulated and complied with the dictatorial regime and denialist system he lived under.

We became a people without national demands and were at the mercy of the tactics of divide and rule. We accepted the authority of the oppressive regimes and distrusted those within our own Syriac people who did demand full rights for our people. For many decades after Sayfo, the will of an individual Syriac and our people was broken. We became docile servants of regimes. Subjugation increased the chances of survival.

Jacob Mirza: I conclude from your words that the Sayfo is continued today. How have these regimes kept us down? And what methods have these regimes employed?

Isho Gawriye: Indeed. Different regimes use criminal and cunning methods.

We have seen this in Turkey with the faili meçhul  cases, the unsolved killings of Syriacs in the 1980s and 1990s. It is very well known to our people what the reasons were behind many of these killings, and who sent the Turkish Hezbollah to kill our people. The one and only reason behind these murders was to empty our homeland from Syriacs. And which of our national organizations was able to speak up inside Turkey against these “unknown” murders? Who stood up and demanded the killers be brought to justice? Not many dared.

In northeastern Syria, in the Gozarto Region (al-Jazira) there was a substantial Syriac population. Through the 1970s-1990s military and intelligence services easily provided documents to Syriacs who wanted to leave the country. The ease with which Syriacs were able to obtain documents to leave the country was part of the plan to empty the Gozarto Region from its indigenous people and part of the larger plan to empty the Middle East from its Christians.

Also, in Syria, the regime creates the appearance of being the protector of the Syriac people. The last 15 years have seen the use of the different Syriac individuals, organizations and segments of our people for propaganda purposes, including all our Syriac churches. This is not a blame game. Again, our people were brought up in the mentality of submissiveness to repressive rulers and their regimes to increase their chances of survival. But this submissiveness came at great political and cultural cost to our people. These methods have continued from the years of the Sayfo until today.

In Iraq, our Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian people gave more than sixty thousand martyrs for wars that were not ours. And the result is clear. We were at the mercy of dictator Saddam Hussein. And the irony is that our martyrs’ lands and property in majority Syriac areas were taken and given to families of martyrs of other peoples. This was open and straightforward demographic change.

Jacob Mirza: From the 1990s our people started to publicly speak out and demand justice. Syriacs started openly demanding political, cultural, and constitutional rights and organized self-defense. Have the Syriac people shaken of their subjugation to policies of denial and oppression and the Sayfo trauma? And how do the status quo regimes and powers respond to our national demands and self-organization?

Isho Gawriye: I believe our movement, which started its struggle from the mid-1980s onwards, played a key role in bringing national awareness and changing the mindset of our people. The question of Sayfo was central to this because through the Sayfo, the ruling powers and regimes wanted to annihilate us. To revive our people, we had to emancipate our people’s free will and take down this subjugation to repressive powers.

The demonstrations, Sayfo hunger strikes, the creation of own printing and visual media outlets, and other activities undertaken by the Bethnahrin National Council were all aimed to empower and free our people. To give it back its confidence, independent voice, and own and free will. To create the mentality to fight for our own people and not for the regimes you live under. Why should the Syriac people be inferior to other peoples? Why should we give martyrs for Iraq, Syria, Kurdistan, or Turkey and not for our own Syriac people?

The mindset of subjugation within our own people has been taken down. We as a people have now organized on all areas. We have clear national goals, a strategy, and we sit at the table. The forces around us and the societies we live in, and even the powers of the world are now forced to at least consider the Syriac people and hear its demands for political and constitutional representation, culture, and language. This is a major change.

And this all started in the 1980s with the most essential element of our identity: the Sayfo genocide with which they wanted to destroy us. The Bethnahrin National Council based its first steps in the rise of our people in bringing about recognition for the Sayfo.

Jacob Mirza: What is the impact of the official adoption of June 15 as national Sayfo Remembrance Day? This decision was taken 100 years after Sayfo, in 2015, by two Syriac churches and secular organizations. Does this mean the churches have shaken of their fear?

Isho Gawriye: In this process, for us as Bethnahrin National Council it was very important to have our own national Remembrance Day, and to step out of the shadows of others. Hence, we see this decision, taken 100 years after the genocide, as a major step for our nation.

The criticism of why we need our own national day, or why June 15 instead of April 24, is not right. The issue is not about which day. The Sayfo started in 1914 and lasted for years, so 1 day would not be enough anyway. What really matters is how we as a people value such a national Remembrance Day. What is important for us as a people, and what do we collectively want to achieve with such a national day of remembrance. We already have enough external enemies would want to divide us. Only when our internal will is free can we as a people make such independent and important decisions.

Jacob Mirza: Any last words from you as representative of the Bethnahrin National Council?

Isho Gawriye: Sayfo is the rise of our Syriac people. Today our people in Lebanon are experiencing hunger again. And we have experienced genocides in many geographic areas in the Middle East, but we were not aware of each other because we were consciously divided over different countries.

For the secular organizations and churches, it is very important that we can unite our views and work together in diplomacy, politics, society, and locally on the ground. And by churches, I mean all our denominations whether Rum, Maronite, Orthodox, Protestant or Catholic.

I call on our people and all our political parties, social organizations, and religious denominations to come together around our common goals as a people and not let external forces come between us. Then will our voice be heard and become a voice that will realize all national rights for our people in the future.

Disclaimer: Translated from the original Syriac.